CALGARY — One day this week, a resident of Fort Macleod, Alta., was out walking in a field on the outskirts of town when he happened upon a heap of five dead Canadian geese.

Yet hunting season was over. And, besides, the bodies and bones had been left in the heap.

Police were baffled.

“Personally, I don’t know what would be the draw to them,” said RCMP Const. Jason Smith. The Canada goose is not the most beloved of birds, but who could they have been bothering on a day that recorded a -30C windchill?

Who would want to kill the lovely, iconic, squawking Canada goose? The list of suspects is a long one, and spans the continent.

On Thursday, more than two dozen Canada geese – and a few mallard ducks as well — were found dead, ‘‘their necks broken and the carcasses thrown over a cliff,’’ according to…